No Man's Land: A History of El Camino RealNardini, Louis Raphael
History
No Man's Land: A History of El Camino Real
Nardini, Louis Raphael
El Camino Real de los Tejas National Historic Trail (Tex. and La.); Louisiana -- History
Camino del Bayuco, road to Bayuco. (Bayuco, a house of Entertainment—A
Night Club of that period.)
Camino de los Ais, road to the Ais tribe of Indians at San Augustine,
Texas. This was the dry weather trail and passed through
Marthaville, Belmont, Zwolle and Ebarb, Louisiana.
Camino de la Laguna, road to swampy lake area, Spanish Lake.
Camino del Bano, road to Rancho Bano, allotted to the Mission, also a
part of El Camino Real.
Arroyo de Chacon, small river of Chacon, named after Chacon who had
settled on the Creek—Winn Break today. (Chacon is also a
Spanish dance which had its own music set to special tempo.)
By the middle of October, 1720, the Aguayo expedition was well on its
way to the Los Adais area, with three thousand nine hundred fifty horses
and six hundred mules, loaded with powder, shot, food, clothing and six
cannons, five hundred eighty-four men _AND_ two hundred thousand
piastres to build presidios on the frontier.
Aguayo, while en-route to Los Adais, received word the war between
France and Spain had ended and there would be no war on the frontier,
never the less, Aguayo established the missions and the Presidio San
Antonio de Bexar at San Antonio. At the tribe of the Adais he began
proceedings to establish a presidio there. France, too, had their “man
of the minute” in the person of St. Denis.
[Illustration: LA PRESIDIO DE SAN ANTONIO DE BEXAR
La Presidio de San Antonio de Bexar, established by Aguayo in 1722,
was located at San Antonio, Texas.
The work of Aguayo in establishing the presidios along El Camino
Real gave permanence and protection to the Spanish settlers who were
to follow, from San Antonio to the Adais in Louisiana, seeking a new
kind of freedom. Their source of food and other essentials was so
far away that they learned to live “off the land”, and became
dependent on no one. As far as they were concerned the head of the
Spanish Government was so far away he was only a figure of speech to
them. This freedom was bred into their descendants—the seed cast by
Francois Hidalgo, fortified by Aguayo, nourished by El Camino Real
and the Neutral Strip was to blossom into the State of Texas at San
Antonio.]
[Illustration: PLAN OF FT. DEL PILAR DE LOS ADAIS]
1. House of the Governor.
2. Church, which was enclosed within the Presidio.
3. Houses of the Soldiers stationed there.
4. Powder Magazine.
5. La Mission San Miguel de Cuellar de Los Adais.
6. Priests’ home.
7. Dwellings of the Adais Tribe of Indians.
8. The Rancho of La Lima, possibly the first merchant and Indian
trader of the Spanish in this area.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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